


Delicious Ambiguity

by the_dala



Category: Pirates of the Caribbean (Movies)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-27
Updated: 2020-08-27
Packaged: 2021-03-07 02:01:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 709
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26149120
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_dala/pseuds/the_dala
Summary: There are things Will doesn't understand. But he's young, after all.
Relationships: Jack Sparrow/Will Turner
Comments: 1
Kudos: 48





	Delicious Ambiguity

**Author's Note:**

> Originally published May 31st, 2005

There are things Will doesn’t understand about himself. Why he left the only home he’d known for eight years, the only woman he ever truly wanted. Why the sea called to him, why the sight of the sun sinking into the horizon made his throat go tight. Why he sometimes wakes in the night to the scent of embers, his fingers curled around hammers and hilts now long gone. Why a part of him longs for Port Royal and everything he once called his own, but not enough for him to return.

He has tried and failed to understand why he let Jack draw him in that first night he boarded the _Pearl_ , into his cabin, into his bed, so deep into his dark eyes that Will couldn’t fight his way out if he tried. He wonders why he never has tried, even after they’ve argued over some small, tedious point or fucked so thoroughly he can’t get out of bed for half a day. He doesn’t know why his body craves the lightest touches – lips brushing over the back of his neck, one fingertip tracing swirls in the sweat cooling on his belly – and the harshest – Jack’s ragged nails digging into his thighs, teeth dragging along the underside of his cock. None of it is new anymore, yet it astonishes him every time. The nature of this attraction, this bond, is worlds away from anything he’s ever imagined, and so it baffles him.

There are things Will doesn’t understand about Jack. Why the ship under their feet sails faster and better and brighter for him than for any other, no matter how seasoned the competitor may be. How he always knows which side of an island will bring them to fresh water quickly. Why he keeps a small, heavy leather bag tied to a bedpost, refusing to tell Will what it contains or why it’s important. What he did to earn the twenty-seven lash marks Will has mapped with his hands, over and over.

Jack’s hand always jerks to his hip when Will presses his tongue to the hook-shaped scar beneath his ribs, reaching for the weapons he isn’t carrying on the belt he isn’t wearing. Will has no idea why Jack glares at him when he apologizes, and pushes his head back down, and snarls for him to get on with it. Sometimes Will obeys and sometimes he doesn’t. He can never predict which reaction he’ll have, nor whether Jack will laugh and kiss him into giddy compliance or sulk and avoid him for a week. Now and again they’ll share a willing woman between them when they’re in port, and Will can never pick up any signals to warn him of the times when Jack’s passion turns to jealous anger and he send the lass on her way. He has learned to feel the shifts in wind and tide, but not in his captain’s mind, his mood.

Often Will feels like he is stumbling blind and dumb through this world into which he has thrust himself. He would be miserable, he thinks, except for the fact that there is one thing he is learning. The path he has chosen is certainly not perfect, and he isn’t even certain that it will prove to be enough. But he’s beginning to question the entire concept of ‘enough,’ what it means to him, what it means to Jack, whether it truly exists. It seems to Will that there is a void which empties itself faster than he can refill it, and there are many days when he doubts whether or not it’s worth the effort.

Then there are days when the sea is kind, the wind sure, and the _Pearl_ every bit the proud siren Jack likes to call her. On those days he is glad to have been called away, glad for every one of Jack’s flashing grins, the hand on his shoulder as they stand together at the helm. He trusts in what he does understand, and accepts what he does not.

Much of the time he believes that he made the right choice because he must, because he could not face the alternative and still rise each morning.

Every once in awhile, he simply believes it.

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by this quote from Gilda Radner:
> 
> Some stories don't have a clear beginning, middle, and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what's going to happen next. Delicious ambiguity...


End file.
